Ruling could dramatically reshape MLB-player draft negotiations
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A little-noticed Ohio court ruling on Thursday could have a major effect on how players selected in baseball’s draft would be able to negotiate with the teams that have chosen them.
It’s been a dance of semantics for quite a few years now. The best college players are drafted after their junior year. They all retain agents, but they’re all called ‘advisors.’ Why? The NCAA maintains that a college athlete cannot have an agent -- the penalty is being declared ineligible -- and players would lose negotiating leverage if they did not have the option to return to college for their senior season.
So, if Scott Boras were to represent your team’s top draft pick, you’re not supposed to negotiate directly with Boras. You’re supposed to negotiate with the player and his family, who would be ‘advised’ by Boras. There is no shortage of teams that have negotiated directly with agents, and no shortage of agents who have negotiated directly with teams, but everyone winked and went about their business.
But if this court ruling holds up on appeal, the rule would be legally unenforceable. The NCAA and Major League Baseball looked the other way for years, and so did all the agents. But not Oklahoma State pitcher Andrew Oliver, not after his eligibility was thrown into question.
In a nutshell, after Oliver fired his first ‘advisor,’ Tim Barratta, in favor of Boras, Barratta sent Oliver and his family a bill for legal services that were forbidden by NCAA rules. Oklahoma State declared Oliver ineligible, and the whole mess ended up in court.
In his ruling, the judge took aim at the seemingly ‘arbitrary’ and ‘capricious’ NCAA rules that deprive a citizen of proper counsel, particularly because NCAA rules allow players to consult with attorneys. Why, the judge wondered, was it improper for Barratta to sit in the living room as Oliver and his family negotiated with representatives of the Minnesota Twins?
For a student-athlete to be permitted to have an attorney and then to tell that student-athlete that his attorney cannot be present during the discussion of an offer from a professional organization, is akin to a patient hiring a doctor but the doctor is told by the hospital board and the insurance company that he (the doctor) cannot be present when the patient meets with a surgeon because the conference may improve his patient’s decision-making power ... What would have happened if Tim Barratta had been in the kitchen or outside on the patio instead of in the same room as his client when the offer from the Minnesota Twins was made?’
-- Bill Shaikin